It doesn’t seem too long ago that I posted the first edition of Trainer Tips Tuesday about using SMART PACTs to improve your goal-setting process.
Whether you’ve been here from the beginning or have recently begun reading them, hopefully you’ve taken away—and implemented(!)—at least a couple useful pieces of info that have helped you improve your health, fitness, and life.
In any event, here we are at the end of October with Trainer Tips Tuesday edition #42. Halloween is less than a week away. Thanksgiving is three and a half weeks later. Then Christmas is four weeks after that. And even though the weather in Wisconsin has been a bit warm the past week, the thermometer’s general trend for the next few months will be downward.
In short, it’s the time of the year when we find ourselves indoors a bit too frequently, sitting on our butts, and eating more food than is good for us.
Which brings me to the point of today’s tip: If you don’t already do so, prioritize spending some time outdoors—preferably at least a few minutes daily but certainly weekly—during the fall & winter months.
Doing so has a few benefits:
1. It can help us manage our weight during the holiday season.
The causes for this are twofold.
First, we’re more likely to be active—hiking, biking, skiing, sledding, skating, raking leaves, splitting wood, shoveling snow—when we spend time outdoors in cooler weather.
Second, our bodies use more energy keeping us warm in cooler weather even when we’re doing less-active things like sitting around a fire pit, in a hunting blind or ice-fishing shanty, or at a football game. This makes outdoor winter activities a great way to start prepping for swimsuit season!
2. It can help to reduce our stress levels.
Studies have shown that spending time in nature (at any time of the year) reduces anxiety. Some of that may be caused by the walking that we’re likely doing to get ourselves into nature. Some of it may be caused by the ease with which we can let our minds wander and decompress when we get there. Whatever the cause, less anxiety means less stress. And that’s generally a good thing.
3. It can help us sleep better.
As the days get shorter, it’s not uncommon to head to work in the dark and come home in the dark. Rarely seeing daylight can mess with our bodies’ melatonin production and cause us trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and/or getting enough deep sleep. And that, in turn, messes with our mood, eating habits & metabolism, and physical recovery.
On the flip side, exposure to bright light at appropriate times of the day helps our bodies know when they should be active and when they should be winding down in preparation to rest. Spending a few minutes outside in the morning and then limiting exposure to blue light produced by electronic screens (TV, computer, phone, tablet) in the evenings will do just that.
Putting it into practice
Whether or not you’re a fan of cooler weather, doing active things with others is a simple way to make spending time in it more enjoyable. So the best way to make sure you’ll get outside during fall/winter then is to find an activity that interests you, contact a few friends about it, and add it to your calendar.
If you’re at a loss for where to start (and live in SE Wisconsin), consider joining some TNT members, past members, and friends in the TNT Hiking Club. We hike most Saturdays (and the occasional Sunday) from November until March. You can find more details about upcoming hikes on the schedule page under the Activities & Challenges section.